let there be heat

No posts last week, I know.  But I was too busy finishing up what I needed to for our radiators to go back in.  Then, I sort of got sucked into just lounging about in the warmth.  Having heat is just so very decadent....

In our defense, it had gotten pretty damn chilly around here...

We pulled these two radiators about a month ago under the pretense of accessing the floors and trim.  Having them out of the way also meant that we could reinforce the floors underneath them and caulk all the gaps, as they had begun to weaken and deteriorate with the water moving through the walls before we bought the house.  Thankfully, the wood, though black from the water, didn't need replacement.  Even though it doesn't look the greatest, it'll never be seen again now that the rads are back.

terrible before pic, but you get the idea
that's brick on the right where the plaster had failed

Since our plumbing company (Chuba for the locals) had given us a quote we couldn't refuse, we let them do the heavy lifting (the radiators are 4 feet long and 2 1/2 feet tall).  Price-wise, removing and re-installing two radiators as well as installing a new pressure relief valve on the boiler ran us two hundred dollars.  Although we could have done it ourselves, for that price I was happy to hand over the money.  We put some plywood down to reinforce our rotten porch so the radiators didn't fall though, and decided to paint them while we were at it (they looked terrible, peeling silver on one side and substantial surface rust on the other (sooo much water in this house!))....  They got pressure washed, the worst spots wire brushed, and painted with many, many coats of Rustoleum's antique brass spray paint.  I even remembered to tape off the threading and bleeders.

And now they're in, the boiler's working, and I can worry about finishing up the woodwork.

I'd like to pretend I don't have any more deadlines, but there's only one reason Luke would be this cute...

I think he may have overheard that we're getting a puppy come Thanksgiving....

wood grain goodness

So the floor?  Done...

It's lovely.  Although it's too cold to go roll around in the grass outside, I'll just lounge about on this expanse of pine.

Sadly, it's not an exact match to the original graining - I didn't have enough time to experiment with the technique given our tight deadline, so the color ended up a tad dark with a less distinct grain. Truthfully this resulted in a more realistic looking floor, but it's still regrettable.  Even more so since I have to carry this through to the dining room, hallway and butlers pantry.  I had planned on writing a bit of a tutorial for getting the grain right since it's such a common treatment, but there's no point given my failure...  What we ended up using was red elm gel stain as the glazing medium over the gold paint, cutting it with mineral spirits if it got too thick.  Every graining tool I tried to use made lines that were too thin.  After trying everything I could think of I ended up buying a silicone basting brush.  It worked, don't judge me.

I was just the girl sitting on the floor of her entry room with all the curtains open flogging the floor with a basting brush for 10 hour stretches...

The cold and damp weather was the biggest hurdle to getting this done.  The stain took three days to dry enough for the poly, and in that time an enormous amount of shiba inu and ragdoll hair embedded themselves in the thick goo.  Unlike debris in poly, I couldn't just sand it out.

the fuzzy culprits...

OBVIOUSLY his nose was cold...

 So, I chose to ignore it.  Three coats of poly over the last three days and the floors are done.  I used varathane semi-gloss (semi-gloss matches the gloss of the waterlox I use elsewhere) to protect the paint, and while normally I'm not a big fan of poly, this looks pretty damn good.  The can advertises it's "aluminum oxide nano technology," which I would normally mock, but given how even the first coat resisted being sanded, maybe I'll give it a pass...

one less

We're back from Charleston with one less family member.  Our dear epileptic bitey thing Trigger Happy Jack collapsed on Friday night, and x-rays showed a hopeless mess of problems - all of which would have been fatal on their own, but which included advanced cancer that had collapsed a lung.

It's surreal - just a few days before we were running him up and down the hotel stairs to burn off energy while preparing for the likely loss of our other dog.  Meanwhile Luke seems to be once again on the mend.

I'm dazed, and more than a little lost without him.  Posting will resume soon I hope.

snails, spirals and shibas

We're still here, still, kicking, still chasing baby bunnies.

Our much adored shiba, Cool Hand Luke, went downhill fast after that last post - ending up in full blown congestive heart failure by the following morning.  Bad enough that he had to be carried in, and the vet warned us he would likely not make it out of the office.  Every damn test was negative, except for the x-ray that revealed hip dysplasia and a rather large kidney stone...  But neither of those explained what was wrong.  We never did find out what was going on, other than it appearing that he may have had a blockage.  We took him home after he had been re-hydrated via iv, and stayed with him 24/7 for the next several days until he was able to eat again and perked up.  Just as we thought we were out of the woods he relapsed and we were back to square one.  We're repeating the same meds as before, and again he seems be to recovering - still not eating, but he at least attempted to capture a rabbit today.  We think this may be the beginning of some sort of bowel failure, and hopefully keeping him on the prescription diet will keep him healthy for the time being.

So, we haven't done much other than pet the dog and stay with him in the air-conditioned bedroom.  We did pick up that mystery couch (settle, bench?) I mentioned, and it's enormous loveliness hasn't left the entry room.  It's a curious piece of furniture, and looks as though it may have been a built-in at one point judging by how it's pieced together and has been reinforced.  It's Art Nouveau, with some Arts and Crafts influence in the carving, and looks to be solid mahogany with fruitwood inlays. I'd guess that it's pre 1910, and almost definitely European.  It has many flaws, but then again, it has satyrs, so I can forgive it anything...

Art Nouveau inlaid fauns

antique couch?  settle?  bench?  

I only just now noticed these are snails.  how utterly marvelous...

I think we've established I'm obsessed with spirals

If you couldn't tell, that's not our house.  It's been too frantic around here to even think about trying to clean enough to take photos.  But if there are any secret Art Nouveau aficionados out there, I'd love to know what you think, a piece like this definitely had a maker, and I'd love to put a name to their beautiful work.  

baubles

We've been keeping the purse strings pretty tight around here while saving for the wrap-around porch build.  Although we still religiously check craigslist and estate sales, things like ebay and salvage yards have been strictly off-limits.  Luckily, I could start a salvage yard of my own out of my basement, and given it's state of utter chaos, wandering around down there has become a bit of an adventure.  Typically, this amounts to finding most everything I need if I just root around down there long enough - and knowing what I have somewhat determines which new projects I start.  However, sometimes my memory fails me, forcing me to actually buy pretties like these...

Antique screen door hinges, I'm a sucker for the spirals...

We had a bit of a Memorial Day party here, which prompted me to begin the EPIC painting of the house by starting with the back porch.  And since huge projects are never quite huge enough, I decided I'd begin fixing up the door, transom and screen door while I was at it - under the mistaken impression that I would have everything I needed to gussy it up somewhere in the house (really, just a crowbar made a huge difference).  Well, I had most everything, but it turns out the antique screen door hinges I had didn't match one another and were lacking in the aesthetics department.  Ebay was more than happy to come to the rescue...

One purchase however led to another, and now this month I've already bought hinges, sikaflex, a new dripless ergonomic caulk gun, wheels for my scaffolding, two new tires, and some moldings.  Ouch.  Luckily, I didn't have to buy these...

antique brass screen door knob and latch

All this, and the screen door still will never fit in the opening properly.  Oh well...

And once the floodgates opened, there was nothing to stop me from buying this lovely doormat when some wonderful person posted it on Pinterest (but why oh why doesn't anyone make nice mats for double doors?).

He never learned the art of being welcoming...

the doctor will see you now

So I watched Day After tomorrow to learn how to prepare for this whole polar vortex thing - apparently survival depends on how many books you have around to burn. I guess I'll be fine.

But really Pittsburgh, -15 with -26 windchill, a bit ridiculous me thinks (as has been this whole winter in fact). Incidentally, none of the foams and caulks and adhesives I need to use to seal up the gaping holes in the third floor eaves can be used in temps below 40, so, so much for beginning to repair the plaster (i.e. my house is cold folks, really, really cold, and my gas bill? We just won't talk about that here). While I'm ranting, I tried to convince my dogs to read my Facebook feed, filled with kindhearted warnings about pets being outside, frostbite and putting booties on your furry friends. My fuzzy gremlins however made me chase them around the yard for 30 minutes in my bathrobe and slippers to get them back inside (-26 folks!), they certainly don't seem to care one iota about my frostbite - typical vain, stubborn shibas, they didn't even put booties on me...

At the moment, blogland is filled with posts about New Years resolutions and such, but I never really even made a Christmas post, so behold, my 10 foot tall Christmas tree (noble fir, like every year), and if you want to be cool like me you'll cover it in rocks and glass owls. Oh, you didn't have a grandfather who was a Navajo-style jeweler and rock-hound with thousands of sliced stones, or an Aunt who sends you stunning glass owls every year (and makes you gorgeous tree skirts)? I'm sad for you...

obligatory stealth cat shot

Fun with curly tailed dogs

As for New Years, as an awesome friend said, "we rung the shit out of it." Indeed, the schoolbell got quite a workout at midnight, as did our firepit and liquor cabinet. And in a pleasant turn of events, not only did our illegal fireworks (bought when we drove through North Carolina) not get us arrested or burn the house down, they caught the attention of some fantastic neighbors who moved in over the summer (the ones I met in my paint splattered glory up on the scaffold, ahhh summer). I suppose an evening of non-stop Christopher Walken impressions and Cards Against Humanity until 6 in the morning means we hit it off just fine!

I have started finishing the last of the kitchen cabinet painting, i.e. the operating table is fully loaded.

It was going fine until I went to reinstall the worst of the doors today. It had looked like someone switched the direction the door opened, and had patched the original screw holes badly. As it turns out, at some point in it's 80 year lifespan the door must have been broken off both directions it had been installed, leaving sheared off screws in the holes. I broke 4 of my impossible to match antique screws and my favorite drill bit before I wised up. The door's installed, but I need to extract the broken screw shafts and do some patching. So very not happy...

the offending door is on the bottom left

The cabinets should be done by the weekend, so one less thing on the kitchen to-do list, and even better will be getting all the doors out of the way and the hardware installed before it gets lost for good!

march of the clawfoots . . .

Tonight we did something that we don't do much of around here, we went out. We socialized with strangers and drank beer for God's sake. What was the occasion that we left our dark hovel you ask? It was for Ron Tanner's (of Houselove.org and From Animal House to Our House) talk at our local reuse store, Construction Junction. While the talk was nothing I hadn't seen and heard before, it was lovely to be out and talk to people for a change, especially since with the storms we have no foundation and still have a tree in the way. Local beer and good cheese soothes the troubled soul . . .

While we wait for the big stuff we're in a bit of a holding pattern. We will have a house full of guests in about a month, and it doesn't look like we'll have the schoolhouse up like we planned, which is hugely disappointing. It also means we won't we able to re-stash everything in it like we had planned, which makes cleaning up "complicated" . . . Although I'm not one to solicit advice, with people commenting regularly (which makes me giddy, so thank you) I'll be brave enough to ask for some tips - how have you managed guests (let alone made them comfortable) in a house that's torn asunder, with all the filth and clutter that goes along with it?

Now that I've begged you for advice, want to see something that two people shouldn't be able to do on their own?

Luke is modeling his top of the line tarp-on-the-roof tin 
protecting the clawfoot dog bed

behold, a tub

these feet were made for walking

we put clawfoot in a corner

We were given this tub shortly after we bought the house, stashed it in that corner, tarped it, and haven't looked at it since. Even worse, that corner has been full of stuff since the day we first looked at the house, stuff that hasn't been touched in 2.5 years. Cleaning it out revealed 3 enormous multi-pane windows, trash, a huge bimini top, trash, a vintage rolling edger, trash, trash and more trash. The windows are awesome though . . .

this is not the privy you are looking for . . .

In the continuing saga of brick and stone hauling, we moved more bricks and stones. Fascinating right? So fascinating in fact that rather than finish (we're nearly done), we dug out what we speculated might have been the privy before it gets covered by a schoolhouse. Although our house has had indoor plumbing since day one (courtesy of an immense cistern, gutters, hand pump, attic holding tank and gravity), many houses like ours still had a privy for the "help." In our case, the house always had at least two live-in maids according to censuses, and may have had additional help, such as a cook or gardener, during the day.

Privys were often located near the edge of a lot, close to the service areas of the house, and were filled in when the house gained additional bathrooms, or the age of hiring help had passed. To find one today, look for a depression in the soil in likely areas, and try sinking a thin, long, rod of metal down into the center - the dirt will typically feel loose, and sometimes you'll hear a grinding as it hits glass or debris (privys were used for all kinds of "waste"). I really only know what a friend and the internet has told me about this, but our depression met all of the criteria, and I found an antique rasp in the first six inches, so my hopes were high. After digging four feet down however, it was sadly concluded that we were digging out an ancient rotted out tree (and if anyone reminds me that many privys were wood lined I'll cry). After digging that far down it seemed a shame to just fill it back up, so we grabbed an empty Gatorade bottle, and put a note (see title) inside, and filled her back up. I hope I'm long gone before anyone digs that up. I fear their wrath . . .

Happily, we're done de-nailing the beams and framing lumber - which, paired with clearing out the footprint, means we're ready for tree removal and the foundation. Next week should bring visible progress, done by someone other than yours truly . . . I'm thinking I need a lounge chair and a cold drink to enjoy the experience.

Something of interest seems to be
living under our wood pile

master of the house, keeper of the zoo...

I was utterly sick of anything that might require wielding a brush yesterday, so I dug through my piles and unearthed a few antique light fixtures to figure out which one to restore for our laundry room. We have accumulated an extraordinary number of these gas and early electric fixtures, ranging in price from free to a few dollars. I had planned on soliciting some advice on which one to use, but that might have undermined the dictatorship I have going on around here. As it turns out, the gas fixture I had hoped to use will need to be professionally rewired (the gas valves need to be drilled out), and honestly, with a hundred fixtures in the basement (oh you think I'm joking?) it's not in the budget to deal with it now.

The budget concern is due in large part to our menagerie, which, epileptic dog aside, has been fairly low maintenance. This month we were hit with a newly diabetic cat with an ulcerated eye and ear infection, and a dog with a broken and infected canine. Everyone's been patched back together, but it'll take our bank account a while to recover.

the creatures in question

Grandma was concerned enough that the cat got a get well soon card - addressed to "Master Crom," I guess we know who the favorite grand-animal is . . . Our mail lady must have loved it, if Crom's not there to greet her she asks where he is, and we've caught her sitting on the porch taking pictures of herself with him!

The fixture we put back together required very little work, it had a fair amount of its original polychome paint and decent wiring, so it was cleaned, polished with 0000 steel wool and waxed. Most of the fixtures we have are basketcases, and are completely taken apart, stripped, painted, and rewired from scratch - which is far more fun than it might sound.

The trained monkey may
require a bit more
training in photography